Agency and Virtues

In the philosophy of action, agency manifests the capacity of the agent to act. An agent is one who acts voluntarily, consciously and intentionally. This article studies the relationship between virtues and agency to learn to what extent agency is conceptually and metaphysically dependent on moral or epistemic virtues; whether virtue is a necessary condition for action and agency, besides the belief, desire and intention? Or are virtues necessary merely for the moral or epistemic character of the agent and not his agency? If virtues are constructive elements of personal identity, can we say that virtues are necessary for action and agency? If we accept that virtues play a role in agency, the principle of “Ought Implies Can” makes us face a new challenge; which we will discuss. After explaining the concept of action and agency, I will study the relationship between agency and virtues in the field of ethics and epistemology. Ultimately, I conclude that not only in theories of virtue but also in other ethical theories, virtue is independently necessary for the actualization of agency; even if, conceptually, there might not be any relation between the two. In many cases, virtue can also have a crucial role in prudential agency. agency, action, moral virtue, epistemic virtue, the principle of “Ought Implies Can”. * Ph.D., Professor. Department of Islamic Philosophy and Theology, University of Qom, Qom, Iran. ׀ [email protected]

Risk assessment of genetically modified food and neoliberalism: An argument for democratizing the regulatory review protocol of the Food and Drug Administration

The primary responsibility of the US Food and Drug Administration is to protect public health by ensuring the safety of the food supply. To that end, it sometimes conducts risk assessments of novel food products, such as genetically modified food. The FDA describes its regulatory review of GM food as a purely scientific activity, untainted by any normative considerations. This paper provides evidence that the regulatory agency is not justified in making that claim. It is argued that the FDA’s policy stance on GM food is shaped by neoliberal considerations. The agency’s review of a genetically engineered animal, the AquAdvantage salmon, is used as a case study to track the influence of neoliberalism on its regulatory review protocol. After that, an epistemic argument justifying public engagement in the risk assessment of new GM food is outlined. It is because risk evaluations involve normative judgments, in a democracy, layperson representatives of informal epistemic communities that could be affected by a new GM food should have the opportunity to decide the ethical, political or other normative questions that arise during the regulatory review of that entit

Genomic resource development for a diploid mint: Mentha longifolia

This research project aimed to develop genomic resources needed to enable construction of a genetic linkage map of the diploid mint species Mentha longifolia. Such a map would facilitate identification of plant genes involved in resistance to Verticillium fungal infection. For this purpose, a small genomic library was constructed from germplasm accession CMEN 585, 279 genomic inserts were sequenced and annotated and 19 PCR primer pairs were designed and tested on two resistant and two susceptible accessions. The Cleaved Modified Polymorphic Sequence (CAPS) method of molecular marker genotyping was found to detect little variation between crossing parents CMEN 585 (resistant) and CMEN 584 (susceptible). Comparative sequencing of PCR products from two European and two South African accessions revealed greater diversity between than within geographic locations. Future efforts should focus on assessing more sensitive genotyping methods, and developing a mapping population from a cross between European and South African accessions